• Panth, Mohan
• Wu, Judy
• Ogunjimi, Victor
• Sebastian, Mary Ann
• Haugan, Timothy
• Wang, Haiyan

Abstract

<jats:title>Abstract</jats:title><jats:p>C-axis aligned BaZrO<jats:sub>3</jats:sub> (BZO) nanorods formed via strain-mediated self-assembly in BZO-doped YaBa<jats:sub>2</jats:sub>Cu<jats:sub>3</jats:sub>O<jats:sub>7-x</jats:sub> (BZO/YBCO) nanocomposite films can provide strong pinning to the quantized magnetic vortices. While the strain initiated from the BZO/YBCO lattice mismatch plays a critical role in nucleation and evolution of the BZO nanorods, it also leads to a highly defective BZO/YBCO interface and hence reduced pinning efficiency of BZO nanorods. This work reports a recent study in probing the effect of BZO/YBCO interface on the pinning efficiency of the BZO nanorods as the interface is repaired dynamically during the BZO nanorod growth using Ca doping. Within the BZO doping range of 2-8 vol.%, significantly enhanced pinning efficiency of the BZO nanorods have been observed. A peak enhancement up to five-fold of critical current density at 9.0 T and 65-77 K has been obtained in the 6 vol.% BZO/YBCO nanocomposites after the interface repair. This result not only illustrates the critical importance of the BZO/YBCO interface in the pinning efficiency, but also provides a facile scheme to achieve such an interface to restore the pristine pinning efficiency of the BZO nanorods.</jats:p>

Topics

• nanocomposite
• density
• impedance spectroscopy
• current density
• self-assembly
• aligned